


brave face talk so lightly (hide the truth)

by nuttyshake



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fake Marriage, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Marriage of Convenience, Married Life, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25831972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuttyshake/pseuds/nuttyshake
Summary: “Have you looked into how student benefits for our college work? ‘Cause I might have a better idea.”“Yeah, well, we didn’t qualify for any scholarships, so that’s out of the question,” Catra starts off, bitter. “We don’t have any disabilities that are medically certifiable, nor are we related to anyone who does. We’re not related to anyone at all, really, but that doesn’t seem to matter.”“It sucks,” Adora agrees offhandedly, blood rushing in her ears. “Go on.”“I don’t know. Parents? I’ve kinda just skimmed the rest of the page. All the focus on family was annoying.”Adora shrugs, trying to look and sound nonchalant. “Married couples, too.”
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 736





	brave face talk so lightly (hide the truth)

**Author's Note:**

> I am not from the US and while I've tried to do my research, I'm sure some things will be wrong. There is no reason for this to be set in the US anyway, so let's just pretend Etheria's college system is its own thing :P  
> Inspired by [this post](https://hatingongodot.tumblr.com/post/143186606415) on Tumblr.

Adora waits two long hours after her football practice for Catra to come home and dump a bag of Chinese food on the kitchen table. Unfortunately, when the door finally opens and her best friend marches to the couch, resolve written all over her face, it’s to dump an eviction notice on Adora's lap instead.

"How long has this been sitting in our mail?"

"Babe, did you get our food?"

"So not only is our bitch-ass landlady raising rent for _no fucking reason,_ but she's also throwing us out if we can't pay it in the next couple weeks-"

"Babe. The food."

"Even though we already _told_ her we were struggling." Grunting, Catra produces a bag and tosses it, not even pausing to see if Adora caught it, because she always does. 

Adora gets up from the couch and sighs, carrying the bag into the kitchen where she’s already laid down the table and cutlery. Despite dragging her feet a bit, Catra follows her. “It’s fine. We’ll find another apartment.”

“One that’s cheaper than this?” Catra scoffs, pulling out a chair only to have it promptly fall apart in her hands. Again. Adora will fix it later, just like she’ll fix the broken sink and paint over the large mold spot on the wall. “We might as well go live in a broom closet.”

“I am _not_ going back into the closet.” Adora half-jokes, hoping Catra will join in.

Catra literally _rips_ into her bag instead, and neatly packaged sushi falls out while Adora looks on concernedly. “Well, you should’ve thought of that before shitting on our only chance at financial support.”

Oh, okay. So they’re doing this, right now. Adora quietly sets the plates and refuses to be stared down. “She would’ve given us money. But at what cost?”

“Like, three years of law school?” Catra seems to have decided that she’ll just sit on the table, and starts stuffing her mouth with sashimi. “We would’ve gotten a degree, gotten a _real_ job, and hit the hell out of dodge. But no, you just _had_ to study horse medicine instead.”

A chill falls over the room, despite the summer having carried into the first week of fall and the windows to the apartment being no longer creaking and shuttering.

“Fuck,” Catra murmurs. Adora is still staring at her silently, so she sees anger, shock, guilt, and anger again flick over her face in rapid succession. “I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. You have every right to choose what you want to do with your life - just like I do. Here, take -” 

She grabs a knife and swipes at the food on her plate, dumping at least half of it in Adora’s. Sashimi is Catra’s favorite - she foams at the mouth at the thought of it; the fact she is giving it up simply because she knows Adora likes it too has to mean she’s truly sorry.

She distantly wonders when she learned to read Catra so well - if they were just born understanding each other, or if they had to learn the little things one by one, arranging them into a secret language only they could speak. It pushes what she meant to ask Catra for a while now - since she first had to explain their financial situation to their landlady, at least - at the forefront of her mind.

“I just-” Catra sighs, frustrated. “I spent my whole life picturing what it would be like when we could finally cut her out of her life forever. How good it would feel to stand up to her and tell her she couldn’t control us anymore. We were supposed to leave with our heads high and backs straight, not - not kicked out like this. Now we’re scraping to get by, and all because you refused to join her legal firm.”

Their foster mother is an extremely sore subject for Catra, and Adora knows. Despite keeping them with her for most of their childhood and all of their teenage years without ever adopting them, or caring for them much past their most basic needs, the woman realized she could keep posing as the charitable hero by offering to aid those two poor, poor orphans in their college studies - so long as they essentially promised to provide her free labor as soon as they both got their degree.

From the first moment, Catra liked criminal justice enough that she probably would have chosen it as her major without coercion, but Adora - Adora bowed under the pressure of all those law books, started stumbling over her words even in everyday conversation, and stayed up all night crying and crying and crying as she tried to absorb any of her lessons, any at all.

It was only much later, after a year of watching the football team from the bleachers and longing for that kind of camaraderie again, instead of the cold, cutthroat competition of law classes, that she admitted to herself what it was she really wanted, and that balancing it with law school would never work out. She then resolved to find any degree that caught her interest enough to keep her afloat, and ended up _loving_ horse medicine.

That summer, Adora announced she was trying out for med school and Weaver kicked them both out. Catra’s resentment and Adora’s feelings of guilt almost tore them apart.

“But it’s fine,” Catra settles on, eventually. “You’re already balancing a job, your studies and football. I can find a second job. Someone on the student council was looking for a babysitter for their niece - maybe I could do it.”

“You? You hate kids.”

Catra makes a dismissive gesture. “They don’t need to know that.”

Adora clears her throat, trying to push her heart back down. “Have you looked into how student benefits for our college work? ‘Cause I might have a better idea.”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t qualify for any scholarships, so that’s out of the question,” Catra starts off, bitter. “We don’t have any disabilities that are medically certifiable, nor are we related to anyone who does. We’re not related to anyone at _all_ , really, but _that_ doesn’t seem to matter.”

“It sucks,” Adora agrees offhandedly, blood rushing in her ears. “Go on.”

“I don’t know. Parents? I’ve kinda just skimmed the rest of the page. All the focus on family was annoying.”

Adora shrugs, trying to look and sound nonchalant. “Married couples, too.”

“Right. I don’t see how that helps us.”

It’s good that Adora’s seated for this conversation. It’s also good that she has to raise her head to look Catra in the eye, and so can’t be expected to. She quickly eats a shrimp, chews it down, swallows. “I was thinking maybe, we could get married.”

Silence. That’s something Adora doesn’t cope well with.

When she speaks, Catra sounds like a piece of food’s stuck in her throat. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s a 40% tax reduction.”

“What the _fuck_.”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Adora rushes to explain, despite the embarrassment burning on her cheeks, “but it’s not like anything would have to change between us. I mean, we live together already. We have a shared income. This would only make it official in the eyes of the faculty, _and_ we’d get student benefits on top of that.”

Catra doesn’t flip her off immediately, which means, at the very least, that she’s thinking about it. “You really want to marry me?”

“Who else would I marry?” And it’s true, a quiet whisper in the creaking kitchen of a poorly furnished apartment, but it’s also _too much_.

It acknowledges that neither of them has ever been interested in marriage and romance in conventional ways. While little girls in Weaver’s foster home used to play house and imagine their future wedding, Catra and Adora just dreamed about going away to some faraway country and finding a big house on the beach where they could live together forever.

Even when they realized, at fifteen or so, that they didn’t have to date _boys_ , and the world suddenly looked a lot wider and brighter, neither of them made it through more than a few unsuccessful dates here and there. As for Adora, if you asked her, she’d probably tell you she would like to be married someday, but when she pictured herself in the future, her wife was always some faceless woman who liked Catra well enough to tolerate her living in their same house.

She always assumed it was the same for Catra, which is why her heart breaks just a little when Catra asks: “What happens if we want to date someone?” She doesn’t give herself time to analyze that too closely, though, because it’s a legitimate question.

“Then I guess we just tell them what’s up. We can get a divorce after college anyway, right?”

“Right,” Catra mutters. She brings more food to her mouth, chewing it pensively. “Uh.”

“You can’t deny it all works in our favor.” At that, Catra makes another noncommittal noise, and Adora acts on pure impulse, grabbing Catra’s hand before it pounced on the sushi rolls. “We have no family. Let’s make our own.”

Catra looks at Adora’s hand like she’s seeing it for the first time, drags her thumb over it gently. When she raises her head, she’s smiling. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Adora almost chokes.

“Yeah. I see no downside to this, except a lot of paperwork. But I do have one request.”

“Sure, anything.” She doesn’t let go of Catra’s hand.

“I want none of that town hall shit, okay? If we’re getting married, we’re having a _real_ wedding. The whole package.”

Adora isn’t averse to that, but she is surprised Catra is bringing it up. “I thought you didn’t care about stuff like that.”

“I mean, I don’t.” Adora suspects she’s lying. “But who knows if I’ll ever get married again, so I figured, what the hell. It’s not everyday you get to have people around celebrating you and your best friend and gushing about how good you look.”

Adora can picture it already. One of Bow’s brothers would be the ordained minister, for sure, and Glimmer would put herself in charge of wedding planning. The flower shop Perfuma worked at would provide the flowers, so many different kinds of them, and perhaps even their bouquets. She imagined herself wearing white as the promises she and Catra made to each other as kids were officialized in front of everyone they loved. The thought shouldn’t make her feel so giddy.

“I don’t have a ring,” Adora realizes just now, though she can see that, too, a somber golden band on Catra’s finger that would become a permanent fixture of their life together, “but in the interest of providing the full package -”

Adora stands up from her seat, still never letting go of Catra, only to drop to her knees in front of her. Catra stifles a laugh, but as Adora looks up at her, at the hint of a blush on Catra’s cheeks, her heart suddenly feels too big for her body.

“Catra, she starts, “I know things haven’t always been easy between us. There have been times when I thought I could lose you, and - I never want to feel that way again. I want you with me no matter what I do and where I go, and if that includes struggling to survive in a shitty two bedroom apartment, then so be it. There is no one I’d rather commit tax fraud with.” Catra’s laughter sounds bright and clear now, encouraging Adora to go on. “Will you marry me?”

“Sure, you weirdo,” is Catra’s reply, winded from laughing too much. “I didn’t have any plans for the next three years of my life, anyway.”

Adora smiles at her, and she’s suddenly painfully aware that this would be the part where they kiss. Instead Adora gets up, dusts her pants off, and they keep eating quietly, sneaking glances at each other from across the dinner table.

  


Convincing their friends is easier than expected. Bow and Glimmer try to talk them down, at first, offer to lend them money and a place to stay until something better comes along, but Adora and Catra are so dead-set on their plans that their friends’ eyes are sparkling with tears by the end of the conversation. Adora is sure there’s something they’re not telling them - but if it gets them on board with their idea, she won’t ask.

Scorpia cries for real when they tell her, saying something about how it was about time, at least until she finds out the reason behind it. Entrapta turns out to be more okay with tax fraud than any of them is comfortable with, and even spitballs a couple more ideas which are quickly shut down.

They don’t plan on telling anyone else, afraid that voice will spread and their benefits will be taken away, but Scorpia asks for their permission to tell Perfuma - she won’t keep secrets from her girlfriend - and Perfuma possibly, accidentally, forgets to keep her mouth shut on their next night out, so now their entire group of friends knows. 

“Honestly, who cares,” Catra grumbles when they get home, tugging off her tie. “Marriage is marriage. People get married without feelings _all the time_.”

Looking back on it, it’s probably better like this. Their friends would have never believed they fell in love and decided to get married in the span of weeks, and Adora would have felt filthy lying to them.

The _real_ problems start a couple months later.

“Just picture me as a hot stranger at a party,” Catra mutters. “It’s not that hard.”

“It _is_ hard,” Adora bites back, hiding her face in her hands. “I’ve known you since we were in diapers. It’s weird.”

“So you _wouldn’t_ kiss me at a party?” From the gaps between Adora’s fingers, she looks offended. 

“If I were drunk enough, maybe,” Adora sighs. “But I’m not planning to be drunk at my wedding.”

“That hurts, you know. I would totally kiss you sober if you stood in the shadow just right.”

“Okay, fuck you,” Adora swats at her, setting off another round of laughter. “Let me try again.”

Catra waits expectantly as Adora cups the sides of her face and neck and leans in again.

It’s not that she thinks Catra is unattractive. If she’s being honest, Catra is probably the most gorgeous girl she’s ever met, and she made her peace with it a long time ago. She sometimes catches Catra looking at her, too, when she thinks Adora isn’t paying attention - so Catra has to be lying, as well. Why Adora still can’t manage to kiss her without feeling like she’s going to throw up after a whole afternoon of trying is beyond her.

She’s getting closer to Catra’s lips, her hands curled in Catra’s hair, and Catra’s eyes finally drop closed. Her mind shuts down right there.

“ _Sorry,_ ” she says over Catra’s groan when she pulls back, again. “Sorry, sorry, I can’t.”

“What is your _problem_ -”

“I don’t _know_ , okay? You were the one who wanted everything done right - maybe _you_ should try.”

Catra sighs, waiting for Adora’s panicked reaction to subside a little. When it does, Catra offers her a one-armed hug, and Adora buries her head in Catra’s neck. Catra’s fingers trail up and down Adora’s arm as she does. “We don’t have to do it, you know. It’s not like our friends don’t know it’s fake.”

“You want a real wedding,” Adora mutters against her skin. “I want to give that to you.”

“I want you to be comfortable more.” Catra nuzzles the top of Adora’s head. “This is already going to be the world’s most unusual wedding. No one’s gonna throw a fit if the brides don’t kiss.”

“Scorpia might,” Adora chuckles. “But I’m not _uncomfortable_ with it, really. It’s just-”

“ _Weird_ , I know.”

“And also,” Adora clears her throat, ready to make her big admission, “I’m afraid I might be… bad at it.”

Catra bursts out laughing. “Bad at what? Kissing?”

“I haven’t done it all that often, okay,” Adora defends herself, pushing against Catra’s chest, but Catra holds her there. “I could handle it if some random girl told me I sucked, but my best friend? I would never be able to look you in the face again.”

“It’s a _peck_ , Adora, not a make-out session. And it’s purely symbolic. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Adora hums, nosing at Catra’s neck. “I guess that’s why we’re rehearsing.”

“Yeah. And I promise I won’t make fun of you, even if you’re a bad kisser.”

“I’m holding you to that.” Adora spends at least two minutes breathing in Catra’s cologne before she feels the arms around her loosening and one minute more before she finally leaves Catra’s embrace. “Okay. Let’s try again.”

Catra smiles at her, more patiently than Adora would’ve thought her capable of, and starts to close her eyes again. It sets off another fight-or-flight reaction in Adora’s gut. “Wait. I should brush my teeth first.”

“For God’s _sake_ , Adora,” Catra finally snaps, and grabs the sides of her face to land a kiss right on Adora’s lips.

It lasts no longer than five seconds, which to be fair is still longer than any regular peck should be, and still she barely has time to process what’s happening and kiss back. She’s too caught up in the sudden pressure of Catra’s warm lips against hers, Catra’s messy locks tickling her forehead, Catra’s soft puffs of breath. It’s the little things that let her know Catra is _good_ at this, and she doesn’t know how that discovery makes her feel. 

When she pulls back, Catra looks a little dazed. “Good?”

Adora nods a little too enthusiastically, then realizes she should probably say something. “Good,” she confirms - then makes sure her lips aren’t still puckered.

  


At the wedding, the final kiss goes off without a hitch, and their friends cheer around them. 

Catra's arms circle Adora's waist and hold her close, only letting go when Perfuma starts throwing confetti. Adora misses her warmth instantly and keeps her hands bundled up in Catra's shirt for just a moment longer before turning around with her.

They didn't want to wait too long. Glimmer's family offered their vineyard as a wedding venue; Bow studied hard to become an ordained minister himself in as short a time as possible. Like they figured, Perfuma took care of the flowers, Sea Hawk of fireworks - though they wouldn't be unleashed until much later, safely away from the property and under Mermista's supervision - and Bow's parents and brothers of pretty much everything else, from the music to finding the perfect outfits for them.

It was weird, how much effort everyone put into a fake wedding. Catra and Adora may not have a blood family, but they always had people watching their backs, even for a scheme as ridiculously convoluted as this. Now that they're married, they officially have each other, too.

Glimmer runs up to them right as the music starts, and hugs them both forcefully. “I can’t believe my friends are _married_.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Sparkles, you’ll find someone too,” Catra mocks, but hugs Glimmer back. 

“Just so we’re clear, I do not approve of you two scamming the government,” Bow interjects from behind her as soon as the hug ends, “but I wish you all the happiness in the world. Truly.”

“How are you feeling?”

Adora shrugs, but not for lack of interest. It feels like color has been splattered all over her walls and she’s just trying to keep it all in. “I’ve married my best friend. To many people this is, like, the dream.”

“And to the government, it’s millennials finally reviving the marriage industry. So we all win!” Catra shakes her bouquet in triumph before pushing it in Glimmer’s chest and grabbing Adora’s wrist. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, my wife and I are overdue for our first dance.”

They pass by the other guests, wave at them - and it's not supposed to be that deep, really, but this time, Adora doesn't feel like following that train of thought. She doesn't _feel_ like it's nothing. They stop in the middle of the dance floor, cheesy party lights focused on them, and when Catra holds her close, Adora feels like crying.

Their wedding playlist is somewhere between “fun and upbeat songs that will get everyone dancing” and “just about every song we could find that had ‘marry’ in the title, to varying degrees of accuracy”. The first song, though, is theirs alone. They sway to it now, slow and soft and intimate, like they have many times before in their kitchen, picturing themselves in the future - how time would change them, try to tear them apart at some point, but they’d stand its test.

Perhaps Catra is thinking about it now, or maybe she’s just listening to the lyrics, because she presses the side of her forehead against Adora’s, tightens her grip on her fingers, and whispers: “I wouldn’t mind it being always like this.”

Adora closes her eyes, feels the plucking of guitar strings under her feet. “Yeah?”

“Just you and me, together. Growing old. It could be nice.”

There’s something vulnerable and unprotected in her voice that makes Adora tremble. She doesn’t have the words to explain, neither to herself nor to Catra, that this is everything she wants - that she’ll sabotage all of her other chances at happiness just to let this be her future. So she says nothing and hums along to the music until the next song starts and brings everyone on the floor. 

  


With the new year, Catra and Adora move in a one-bedroom apartment not too far from campus. It’s no house on the beach, and it’s not much bigger than their previous apartment was, but it’s theirs, and no one can take it away from them. They fill it with their stuff and spend the rest of their break huddled up under the covers like when they were kids.

Adora doesn’t know why they stopped. She thinks Weaver might have yelled at them, at some point, scared them into sleeping in separate beds - but they’re not under Weaver’s control anymore, and she’s only now starting to figure out what that means. All the things they can do now that they couldn’t do before - all the things they don’t have to stop themselves from feeling, without even knowing that’s what they were doing.

“I love sleeping with you,” Adora tells Catra on their first morning back to work, tucked under her chin. “You’re so warm. It’s like hugging a furnace.”

"And you're always _cold_ ," Catra retorts, jokingly trying to bat her away. "Come on, isn't waking up already traumatizing as is?"

"What do you have to get up for? Go back to sleep." 

"Some people have morning shifts, babe."

"I know. Sucks for them."

Catra laughs, but she does relent, moving back in to give Adora some of her body heat, her arms wrapping around her. “Okay, five minutes. Then I’ll make pancakes.”

They spend at least fifteen staring out the window, watching the snow swirl down below.

  


“Adora, isn’t that your wife?”

The hours at work are long and tiring and spent brewing coffee for grumpy clients, but when Spinnerella points Adora to the door Catra has just walked through, she beams. 

“Yeah. She’s picking me up at the end of my shift.”

“Go ahead,” Spinnerella smiles, throwing a sly glance at her own wife behind the counter. “Netossa and I can handle it.”

Catra has been visiting her at work more and more often, sometimes making a show of bringing her lunch, or a present, or straight up kissing her in front of everyone. It was mostly a prevention tactic - the café Adora works at draws in students from all over campus, all of whom would never dare question the legitimacy of Catra and Adora’s relationship. It’s almost empty now, except for Spinnerella and Netossa, but Catra still pecks her on the lips, and Adora hears her bosses cooing behind them - like they do every time. Apparently, Catra and Adora remind them of their times as newlyweds, or something like that.

Adora feels so bad about tricking them that when Catra pulls back, smirking, Adora follows her lips and kisses her again, fingers digging into Catra’s hips to keep her close. It’s slow and soft, nothing more than she and Catra have already done, but when Catra breathes a laugh against her, Adora feels - light. Like she could float away, but also as if she’s holding all the sunlight coming in through the windows inside her body.

“Get a room,” Netossa jokes, starting up the coffee machine again, “before I change my mind and give Adora a double shift.”

And she’s totally kidding, but just to be safe - Catra manoeuvers Adora out the door and out of view, into the late afternoon. There’s a light chill in the air, but spring isn’t too far behind now; Adora knows because Catra’s allergies have started hitting her full force, and she knows to always bring tissues with her, in case Catra forgets hers.

As they walk by the tree-lined avenue that leads to the main road, Catra shrugs on her suit jacket and hands her a bag. “Here. Eat up.”

“Is that -” Adora peeks in the bag and gasps, because it is. “My favorite burger.”

“Yeah, figured we should eat something before dinner with Sparkles, unless we want to starve.”

“That is not nice, Catra,” Adora says, but takes a big, big bite of her burger, because truth be told, she’s skipped lunch today in order to study and isn’t waiting a minute longer to dig her teeth into something.

It’s almost scary, sometimes. Adora feels with Catra the way she thinks old married couples are supposed to feel - not the newness, the freshness of discovery, but the simple, quiet comfort of knowledge already acquired, of bones being able to rest. She wonders if Catra feels the same way about her. She wonders if Catra will get tired of her, at some point, if she’ll want more from her life than Adora is able to give her. 

When they walk through the door to Glimmer’s town apartment, the whole group is already there, wine glasses in hand. Adora profuses herself in apologies; Catra immediately smells something burning in the oven, which sends Glimmer and Bow running to check on some poor chicken. The others circle Adora and Catra, hugging them, asking how they’ve been. They haven’t seen each other in more than their usual week, busy with their jobs and midterms and - frankly, with each other. 

“Catra!” Mermista points at her from across the room. “Word on the street is you got _the_ paid internship of the year.”

“Yup,” Catra drawls out, pouring herself a cup of wine and dropping next to her on the couch. “Finally left that damn department store. I’m earning real money now.”

“I’ve been coveting that for _years_. How did you do it?”

Catra shrugs not-so-modestly. “What can I say? My wife loves supporting me and believing in me.”

“There's no need to be disgusting with us,” Mermista sneers, but Adora would beg to suggest otherwise. She likes that Catra calls her her _wife_ so often - how the word sounds in her mouth.

"You're talking about me?" she asks, nonchalantly, as she moves to sit on the couch, too. Catra grabs her wrist and pulls her forward and into her lap instead. Adora’s graced with a front row seat to Mermista’s pretend-puke as Catra’s fingers brush through her blonde hair.

“Always. They need to know I wouldn’t be where I am without you.” And before Adora can open her mouth to deny, Catra continues: “Tell them how your midterms went.”

“Oh.” She is confused, but okay. “They went… well?”

“Not the time to be modest, Adora.” Catra is - really close to her right now. If she gets any closer, their noses will brush, and Adora will probably lose her goddamn mind. But Catra turns away from her, addresses everyone in the room, instead. “This girl right here has passed all her exams with full marks. And I mean _all_ of them.”

Someone gasps. Mermista is outraged. Bow and Glimmer scream, though it’s probably because the burned chicken slipped from their hands and ended up on the floor.

“It’s really not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? My baby is the smartest person I know.” Catra turns to her again and, as if the pet name wasn’t enough - they called each other _babe_ sometimes, like friends did, but it didn’t make her heart feel like molten gold - she leans forward and pecks Adora on the cheek. “And she inspires me to be better, too.”

Catra’s looking at her with something Adora cannot recognize, and while it confuses her, it also, in a weird way, makes her feel better. Maybe their lives aren’t over. Maybe there _are_ still things they need to learn.

Perfuma clears her throat somewhere behind them, and the world starts up again. Mermista looks quickly away from them; Glimmer resumes throwing the chicken in the garbage.

“So!” Bow calls optimistically out into the room. “Pizza?”

  


Adora hasn’t seen Catra for three days, and has been wearing her hoodie for just as long.

She’s not worried about where Catra is, or even who she’s with; she spends most of her time at the office now, so she’s either pulling an all nighter to help work on some case or she’s heading home right now in some fancy ride, eager to slip into their bed and leave again in the morning. Adora still thinks she should wait up for her to come back, just to talk a bit before drifting off, or to see if she needs anything, so she waits for her on the couch.

Catra’s hoodie smells sweet. It’s been imbued with Adora’s perfume instead of Catra’s for far too long, and yet it still gives Adora the kind of warmth she’s used to getting from Catra’s arms around her, from her kisses, sometimes - from her laugh.

This is what she’s worried about - that she may never have that again. She and Catra haven’t been arguing, not really, but that’s only because they haven’t been talking at all, and while they’ve both been busy, they usually find the time. A movie on the weekend, five minutes of small talk around the kitchen counter, drunken giggles in bed. Adora suspects it’s her fault they don’t anymore.

The truth is, she got scared. She kept catching Catra sneaking glances at her, and it made her hyper aware of Catra’s presence at all times. She kept pulling Adora close in front of people, as if to make a statement, to the point Adora couldn't ignore her body's reactions anymore. But instead of indulging her, instead of allowing herself to be taken care of the way she needed, Adora shut herself off, and after a week or so of prodding, Catra stopped trying altogether.

Adora wants to kick herself for that now.

It’s not worse than what happened last summer, with them taking all of their insecurities and resentment out on each other. It’s something new that they’ve always managed to avoid - the silence that comes after the breaking point.

The front door opens, and though there’s barely any light coming in from the window, Adora recognizes Catra’s silhouette, the jingle of her keys. They look at each other in the dark.

“Adora? What are you doing still up?” Catra sounds worried. She steps further into the apartment, thinking that maybe something’s wrong with Adora, and - to be honest, it is. She just doesn’t know how to explain it to anyone who’s not her, who doesn’t feel what she’s feeling all the time - not even Catra. For all the years they’ve known each other, there’s still a chasm between them, and the idea of it growing deeper scares her more than it being filled. 

“Waiting for you,” Adora mutters as Catra sits on the couch with her, and Adora can finally look at her. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Catra apologizes, when she shouldn’t have to. She should wrap Adora up in her arms. She should be burying Adora’s face in her shoulder. Adora doesn’t like how cautious she’s being, how she sits as close to the couch arm and as far from Adora as she can. “My boss is having me work overtime. You didn’t have to stay up. You have class in the morning.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry. I’ve been avoiding you.” She slides closer to Catra and motions with her head to her lap. “Can I-”

Catra looks surprised, but she nods, so Adora lies down in Catra’s lap, humming gently the second Catra starts petting her hair. It’s not even pulled into a ponytail - Adora has let it roam free for days, which is the closest thing she knows to a cry for help.

“Is that my hoodie?” Catra chuckles, softly enough that Adora aches.

And she says, again, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Adora, it’s fine. If you needed some time to yourself, you could’ve just told me.” Catra shrugs. “We don’t always have to do everything together.”

That nonchalance, right there, is not what Adora wanted to hear. It reminds her of every single person, including their foster mother, who ever told them their attachment was unhealthy - that they needed to grow up and get over it. It reminds her of the safety Catra offers her, of the stability she hangs on to when everything seems to be going too fast, and how stupid it would be to risk it all now. Turns out the only thing worse than the emptiness she feels now is the emptiness she’d feel if Catra left her life forever.

“But I want us to,” Adora confesses, which makes Catra stop in her tracks. “I feel more comfortable with you than with anyone else.”

There’s pure, unadulterated relief in Catra’s voice when she speaks. “Same.”

But then, more shamefully, Adora whispers: "It’s gonna suck when we get that divorce,” and muffles the sound on Catra’s thigh.

There; she confessed to her weakness. Admitted that she’s enjoying this far more than she should. Catra disentangles her fingers from Adora’s hair, probably horrified by the extent of Adora's need, and rests her hands on the couch. “We’re still doing that?”

Adora twists her head back to glance up at her. She can barely see her, but she wants to be the moonlight touching her face, creating angles and shadows. _God,_ how she wants Catra to herself - the comfort of her sunlight, and her unknown too. “Wasn’t that the deal?”

They are silent for longer than is usually acceptable, before Catra asks yet another question: “Why, have you found someone else to marry?”

Adora wants to laugh. She only shakes her head instead.

Catra sighs, and slides further down on the couch until her head is resting on the couch arm. Her hands are back on Adora for a second and Adora could _cry,_ but she’s just tugged up so she’s lying on Catra’s chest, only inches away from her face.

"What if we don't get divorced?" Catra suggests, and Adora feels Catra's heart jump under her ear. Her arms are around Adora, holding her so close Adora can't remember what it felt like to be apart. “What if I don’t want to be with anyone else? Would you be cool with that?”

"Yes," Adora chokes out, nodding into Catra's skin.

She thinks she says it repeatedly, because at some point, Catra drops a kiss into her hair and she leans into it, the word still echoing in her ears.

"Yes. That would be perfect."

Adora doesn’t know when they fall asleep, entwined together in the dark like that - Catra still wearing a work suit that will be wrinkled in the morning, Adora wearing Catra’s clothes. But Catra’s lips, light as butterfly wings, are the last thing she remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sick Of Losing Soulmates by dodie, which is also the song for Catra and Adora's first dance.  
> Find me on Tumblr at [clacing](clacing.tumblr.com) and please comment if you liked it!  
>   
> [catra and adora's wedding playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1yJFo1U0Muuuy0BzcIsZqV?si=9bx9sJsXR7SuXpHGy0l39g)


End file.
